Real vs Relative

Posted on March 15, 2010 by Justin

The following is an article by my friend Phil Stevens. Phil has competed in powerlifting and strongman, and is pretty damn strong. He works with Charles Staley and is a contributor on the Staley Training Systems website.

Real vs. Relative

I often find myself thinking on the subject of strength, and of course the whole relative strength concept, or more so fallacy (fallacy in My Opinion, and remember my opinion is one that’s has seen me as heavy as 320 and light as 165 at 6’1” so it’s pretty damn diverse where I have been) comes to mind. In reality, reality meaning the real world, there is NO such thing as relative strength,. There is ONLY strength. Relative only comes into play in a contrived situation such as a weight classed sport such as power or Olympic weight lifting. In the real world, the one that 99.9% of the population lives in, aside from us athletes, there is NO relative factor to strength. (HMM so why is the relative fad such a highly sought and contrived pinnacle when most people are not in a competitive situation that demands it)

In the real world if there is a task to be done, the task does not care one iota how much the person doing it weighs. The one and only factor is that the job must be done. In such a case, a case that is a many and very much so the majority, strength is the most residing factor to your ability to compete such a task. A factor that by far and large most lack including those that seek and triumph there supposed superior relative strength.

So lets bring the relative world in to the real world. Of course the situation is going to still be contrived, it’s a story, and any story will be, But we’ll make the tasks these two have to complete as real world as we can.

So we have Carl. Carl is a self proclaimed stud. He is a jack of all trades and pretty damn good at pretty much any sport he trains. He’s 6 foot 190. He can run a 6 and a half minute mile, run a 4.3 40, has completed a half marathon, can do 20 dead hang chins, can press 225 (1.18 x bodyweight), bench 275 (1.44 x bodyweight) , squat 475 (2.13 x bodyweight) , deadlift 570 ( 3 x bodyweight)and is Ripped at 8% body fat with HOT Abzz. Those are damn good numbers in relative terms, and dude is Hot and mean he has Abzzz.

Now we have his polar opposite Abbot. Abbot is the same 6 foot but he is 280. He hasn’t ran a mile in ? god knows how long, can still run a 5 second 40, gets sick thinking about running a half marathon hell even walking a half marathon, can do 8 dead hang chins, can press 275 (.98 x bodyweight), bench 345 (1.25 x bodyweight) , squat 490 ( just 1.75 x bodyweight) , deadlift 600 ( just 2.15 x bodyweight) Abbot is over fat with a 23% body fat with not a hint of abs and some killer love handle. He’s strong but his numbers aren’t great. He’s no elite athlete by any means he dabbles in strength training pretty good at making it 2-3 times a week and just trying to get Strong when he does make it. He thinks about some day maybe getting serious and being a power lifter or Olympic lifter but who knows.

Again polar opposite one jacked ripped pretty down strong stud and one guy that’s again has a good level of strength but in relative terms not that great and his capacity for distance is likely crap as he hasn’t done any. What happens when we put these two in a simple real world situation? Meaning a situation that like life doesn’t care what you weigh just that a task MUST be completed?

Abbot and Carl are dropped on an island ( told you contrived but stay with me here remember the definition of real world) They are told you each have 24 hours to do two things or you will face death on this island which has no food and no escape. You have to first cross the island. It is 30miles then you must lift a 580 lb lead weight off of a trigger that will then send the alarm to have the chopper come save you.

OK GO. Carl smokes it he paces himself and to conserve energy and still makes the 30 miles in 6 hours. Abbot on the other hand, he is over fat and not “fit” he slugs along at 30 minutes a mile, takes the time to take in the scenery etc. and makes the trip in a piss pour 15 hours.

What does Abbot find? He find Carl laying on the ground next to his weight to move crying his eyes out knowing he faces certain death even thought he kicked the hell out of Abbots travel time, even though he has HOT abuzz and is a superior physical specimen. Despite the fact his relative strength in as high as three times body weight a HUGE feat in any sports realm he just can’t move the weight, it is 10 lbs more then his best ever effort.

Abbot smiles then waddles his fat as over to his lead weight. He takes a big breath expanding his bowl full of jelly, grunts turns 16 different shades of red as his blood pressure shy rockets due to his over stressed heart but he moves the weight and he lives, While his relatively stronger competitor is destined to die.

What’s the moral of the story? Abbot was relatively less “fit” ( an abused and over used term) but when the rubber hit the road he could do everything his counterpart could and more. It may take him longer at some things that required endurance but he could do them. While Carl even though he was a human freak and had great relative strength when face with one task vs. a seemingly lesser opponent in all ways except one (maximal strength) LOST.

In the real world, on the field of life. What matters most is your ability to DO the job, not so much how long it takes. If you cant do it, it will by default, take you forever. More times then not in life the reason someone cant do something, be it a chin up, to carry an injured soldier or co worker off the field. The ability to push your car off the street. To beat down an oncoming attacker. Or simply be a useful man and have the ability to move your old washing machine out of its basement home, and move a new one in its place is limited by your lack of maximal strength. All of the other strength qualities, as Mark Rippetoe has a very unique and entertaining way of explaining and I urge you to hear in person by attending one of his seminars, relies first on maximal strength. For example before you can have strength endurance you better damn well simply have the strength. You cant endure without the base level of strength to do one.

This is not me proposing you to become an over fat, un-conditioned but fairly strong slob. It me telling you to wake the hell up and realize you live in a real world, and the real world doesn’t care how much you weigh. If you care about real world ability one of the main things on your mind should not be your Abzz and if you can fit in your skinny jeans and still knock out 25 chins, but that you have the ability to DO the tasks that are asked of you, with no regard to how you look doing it. More times than not that will mean getting bigger, and adding a bit of healthy body fat to get stronger. A healthy focus on performance instead of aesthetics and you’ll find out an amazing fact that if you do so, your form will follow your function.

I’ve had visible abzz myself and I’ve still never seen an ab do a damn thing in this life in the real world. Now go ponder these words and ask yourself really how useful are you, in real, not relative terms.

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You can find the link to this article here. And here is some training footage from Phil:

PR Friday

Posted on March 12, 2010 by Justin

“Maggie, no!”

Well 70’s Big journeymen (journeywomen?), it is PR Friday. You should post your weight lifted, gained, and/or consumed, and you should also tell us about lifting your lady friends, dumping your skinny boyfriends, or splitting your trousers (I ripped another pair of jeans recently).

And for gods’ sakes, if you are a guy who is 5’7″ or taller and you aren’t 200 pounds, then you better have a compelling excuse as to why you aren’t. The only reasons I can think of are if you are 13 years old or you are a weight class competitor. For gods’ sakes.

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Here is the WFAC post about the Bill Starr Memorial weightlifting meet from last Saturday. It has some pictures, and it has the overall results. Feel free to send in the meet results from any meets you are involved in.
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I have a very good friend named Matt that I met in college. Until recently he was getting paid to tramp through the wilderness (we went hiking near Salt Lake City last year when I was in town for a barbell seminar), and at the end of last year he stopped by Wichita Falls on his journey back to Georgia. Matt called me the other night with a story, as he is apt to do. When he finished, I told him that he needs to type it up for the site.

Well, I’ve read the hell out of Starting Strength and watched the video quite frequently to try and get my technique down, and it sparked quite a dream.

I have been to the Wichita Falls Athletic Club before when I visited Justin in order to start my Jedi training. In the dream, I walked into the gym, and it was just like I remember. It was extremely busy with people everywhere, and Justin greeted me and asked me to work behind a new counter they had built for the purpose of renting out lifting shoes. He was busy training the masses as I settled behind the counter. I hadn’t been standing there ten seconds when I was approached by a visitor, some 90’s small chump who was asking when the next Pilates class was. It is important to note that this guy was: A) not wearing a shirt, B) had the kind of pencil thin manicured beard that says I spend 30 minutes daily “man-scaping”, and C) was wearing sunglasses inside. Throughout the rest of my story I will refer to this man as Din Viesel, because he probably got his style from the “Fast and Furious” movies that he can probably recite.

Note by Justin: I find this humorous, because in order for Matt to dream about a Din Viesel-like character, he would have had to had the image in his brain prior to dreaming it, therefore he actually sat through some portion of that shitty movie.

I had no idea what to say and almost laughed in his face. Rip heard the question and took it upon himself to intervene. I can’t remember all of the conversation, but Mr. Viesel was a complete dick and he decided to buck (I recently learned this word from a 7th grader) at Rip after being informed that they most certainly don’t “do Pilates”. Rip asked Viesel to “Get out of my fucking gym,” in an enraged tone. The conflict now had the attention of everyone in the gym. Suddenly, Viesel tried to throw a haymaker, but Rip didn’t hesitate. He rushed Viesel, picked him up high above his head, then with his supreme power he slammed him into the ground. (Important: I went to High School in Macon Georgia… so I should know the name of this wrestling move, but I don’t). Right after the powerful slam, I immediately woke up, laughing my ass off.

I’ve attached a diagram to better understand the “slam.” This is not my best work, but it took only 5 minutes.

Click for larger image.

Revisiting this…again

Posted on March 11, 2010 by Justin

The internet is still a funny place. You never can be too careful with who you believe, especially if that person does not have an identity outside of their internet persona. Being an internet skeptic can probably be taken too far and is even analogous (arguably) to Robespierre in the French Revolution.

Robespierre called it like he saw it

In any case, there is still some goofy talk around the net that include accusatory false statements or records pertaining to the improvement my friend Zach in his time at the WFAC. I am not involved in the discussion, but it does have something to do with me since I originally taught Zach the lifts, coach him on his form and program on a regular basis, and encourage him to continue growing. Basically what I am saying is that I don’t think contrary arguments are malicious, but I and we are not fucking around, and if someone with average genetics wants be a good deal stronger and bigger, this is what we do.

Here are some videos of Zach — he weighs himself, then he does his volume squat workout, which is 5×5 at 320. Every rep is to full depth, and the sets are not that hard; Rip’s main priority is keeping him out of his knees. Oh, and there are two videos in order to represent the two cameras used to show different angles, in case his depth was in question.

Zach 320# 5 x 5 (Camera #1) from stef bradford on Vimeo.

Zach 320# 5 x 5 (Camera #2) from stef bradford on Vimeo.

News

Posted on March 10, 2010 by Justin

The late post is due to work being done on the site to prep it for some new features that will be revealed soon. As for today, we have business to tend to.

1. Thank you for all of the replies about the t-shirt help. I will be in contact with some of you within a day or two. We are finalizing two new t-shirt ideas, and a twist on the old one.

Update:
2. Josh Wells and I are starting a new program at the Wichita Falls Athletic Club in which we will be offering weekend training packages. This will include 5 training sessions — two on Friday, two on Saturday, and one on Sunday morning. The first weekend we will be offering this is April 9th, 10th, and 11th. The price is set at $275 and will include ten hours of coached training by Josh and I as well as whatever lecture, observation, and experiences go along with hanging out at the WFAC for the weekend. You will see some of our own lifters training, you will undoubtedly interact with the infamous Rippetoe, and you will bathe in the glory that is Wichita Falls, Texas. This training package is capped at 10 people, and we expect it to fill up fast, so if you are interested, e-mail me ASAP.

The emphasis of training will depend on the experience level of who is signed up, but we plan on going through all of the major barbell lifts: squat, press, deadlift, bench press, snatch, and clean and jerk. Assistance exercises such as the halting deadlift, rack pull, jerk lockouts, etc. may be included upon request or necessity. E-mail if you have any questions.

Bill Starr Memorial Weightlifting Meet — 2010

Posted on March 9, 2010 by Justin

The Bill Starr Memorial Weightlifting Meet was at the WFAC this past weekend. No, Starr isn’t dead, and the meet is a memorial to his lack of visiting (says Stef, the meet director). The meet went pretty well for most of our lifters. Here is a quick recap.

15 year old Kyle started lifting at the WFAC around last September, and has improved pretty consistently in his total due to getting stronger. After the Texas State meet in January, he went back on the linear progression with an emphasis on improving the technique in his lifts. Sometimes this is frustrating because it may require the lifter to drop weight on his lifts, but the payoff is worth it in the long run. This was the case for Kyle, who weighed in at 106.2 He had PR’s in snatch, clean and jerk, and total at this meet. The last week of training leading up to the meet went really well, and Kyle was hitting his lifts smoothly — he was definitely in a groove. This carried over on Saturday as he cruised to a 76 kg snatch, then stepped up big with a 96 kg clean and jerk — both gym and meet PR’s (a gym PR is something you hit in training while a meet PR is done officially in competition). Nice lifting by Kyle, and congrats on the 172 kg total.

Sammerr is a 21 year-old 94kg lifter, and things looked good for him as he hit his opening snatch at 112 kg. I wasn’t able to watch him lift since I had to warm-up during this time (there was only one session in this meet), but he ran into some trouble and didn’t hit another snatch. He was frustrated during the break (the period between the snatch and clean and jerk sessions) since his gym PR is 120. Nevertheless he came out and hit 140 for his opening clean and jerk, matching his gym PR and setting a meet PR. He attempted 145 on his second attempt, but apparently missed it on the clean because he didn’t finish the pull. This led to a heated lecture from Rip (Rip and Josh were handling most of the lifters). Sammerr’s goal was to clean and jerk 150, so Rip decided to give him 147 on the third attempt to force him to step up in a big way. After hearing about the 150, Rip said, “fuck it” and told announcer Tom Witherspoon that Sammerr would attempt 150. I don’t exactly remember what Rip said to Sammerr next (I was mentally preparing for my opening attempt), but I remember him jabbing his finger in Sammerr’s chest, probably saying, “Now go finish the goddam pull and get this fucking weight.” Well, Sammer stepped on the platform, finished the pull and stood up with a hard front squat. Amongst all of the yelling from Rip, Josh, and I, he reset his breath, dipped, and nonchalantly drove the weight up — it didn’t seem like it was going to be enough and then all of a sudden it was overhead. Three thumbs up made it a good lift, and Sammerr finished with a respectable 262 total in his second meet.

Quincy is a 105+ lifter who is getting back into training after a layoff. Rip and I encouraged Quincy to go on primarily a strength training program — in this case, a linear progression — with some Olympic lifts sprinkled in a couple months ago. Josh had been cleaning up Quincy’s technique earlier in the week, and Quincy has the potential to do 140/170 right now. I watched him do 130/160 earlier in the week, and this is exactly what he did at the meet. Not bad for his first meet back, and I fully expect him to improve his total by at least 20 or 25 kilos before the next meet in nine weeks.

I came into this meet hampered by set backs, as is the case for all three meets I have done. After the Texas State meet in January, I went on the Texas Method and was progressing my squat and deadlift pretty well until a low back injury occurred from squatting the day after airplane travel. In the last ten days of preparation for this meet, I could not jerk over 120 — it seemed like the acromioclavicular ligament in my shoulder was unhappy with a few things, which gives me one more thing to consider in my programming. I wasn’t snatching very well, and was only cleaning without the jerk in the last week of preparation.

I dropped a day of training last week and figured I would go for broke at the meet with a strategy of opening conservatively with the best case scenario to qualify for nationals. The qualifying total at the end of last year was 287 for the 105 kg class, so this was my goal. I had been watching my friend Brent snatch (who did not have a great meet and seemed to have some kind of shoulder issue on his jerks), and sort of forgot about warming myself up. I had to speed through my warm ups, power snatching 60 a few times on a 20+ year old York weightlifting bar. I power snatched 80, then proceeded to miss 100 and 110 on the bar. I was baffled by the misses as I don’t usually miss warm-ups. I may have been unfamiliar with the bar, but whatever the case was, I wasn’t sticking it at the top. After a talking to from Josh (who coached me through the warm-up room and my attempts with Rip helping), I hit 115 as my last warm-up before heading out to the competition room.

I wrote 120 down as an opener, but had planned on moving it up to 123, and this is what I did (you cannot lower your attempts, but you can raise them). The platform that we were lifting on is one of the platforms that I train on all the time, so when I approached the bar, I knew I would have to pick something to look at since there was now a head judge in my face with 20 people or so behind him. I picked a spot on the judge’s left shoulder, set-up, and stroked 123 kilograms like a kitten. I called for 127 on the second attempt, which would match my gym PR that I had hit many, many times and it would be a 2 kilo meet PR. The approach was the same, and it was business as usual. I had apparently smoked this weight because Rip wanted me to go to 132 or 133, but I told him about the necessary 287 total I would need for nationals, and if I hit 130, then all I would need was a 157 clean and jerk, which I could do on my second attempt. He agreed and told me to seal it up with this next lift.

The best I have done in the snatch is going 2/3 last October, but that thought never came to mind. I approached the platform with the same set-up, found the judge’s left shoulder, got set, and stuck the weight just as routinely as the first two attempts. I was pretty happy with the snatch performance, especially with the trouble I had in training…not to mention I dropped 130 on my neck in December when my left shoulder “turned off”, which didn’t feel good.

The clean and jerk warm-ups went well, and Quincy, Travis (a guy who trains at the Spoon Barbell Club near Dallas), and I used the same bar. 150 was written down as my attempt, but I planned on taking 153. Josh coached through this portion and chalked my shoulders as Sammer was getting his “un-fuck yourself” speech from Rip before he hit his 150 clean and jerk. After Sammerr’s good lift, the bar was loaded for me, and I made an easy clean — so good in fact that I over pulled it and the bar landed higher on my clavicles than it ever has, which allows the bar to press on the carotid arteries. When I jerked the weight, I couldn’t really see, but got the weight over head easy enough. I walked over to Rip, and said, “I couldn’t see on the jerk.”
“It’s okay, you don’t need to see.”
Fair enough. My second attempt was at 157, and if I made a good lift, then the qualifying total would be wrapped up, which was all I could ask for earlier in the week with a sore back, hurting shoulders, and bad training. I don’t remember anything profound about the clean, routine as usual, and the jerk was stuck ovehead, albeit a bit goofy. It looked good enough for Rip to suggest that I go to 163 for my final attempt. This would be a big meet PR, and would be near my old gym PR of 165. I went out to the platform, adrenaline surging while thinking about one or two cues from Josh and Rip. I finished the piss out of the pull on the clean, so much that it landed high on my clavicles again. I had a pretty tough front squat, yet it wasn’t ever in doubt. The problem was the pressure on my carotids, because my vision was fading — apparently my head was beet red. I exhaled three quick bursts, breathed in deep, and started the dip for my jerk, yet everything felt weak, and by this time my vision was totally gone. I dumped the bar dumped forward, and toppled to my left like a dead tree. I haven’t seen the video (there will be video of the meet soon), nor could I see, but I remember the noise my lifeless body made as I plopped on the platform as my elbow slammed down. It felt like I more or less rolled like a tea cup, because I was back on my feet instantly, although I staggered two steps. I felt like I had my balance, but Rip nonchalantly commanded, “Take a knee”, so I did. I was slightly bummed that I missed my first chance at going 6 for 6 with a huge increase in the clean and jerk, but I quickly put it in perspective, especially since I couldn’t really have done a better job. If I was at least a half second faster in my transition from the clean to the jerk, I might have staved off the collapse. It just goes to show how much efficiency is important in these movements, and efficiency and mechanics are what we emphasize in coaching. But hey, I went 5 for 6 at 130/157 for a total that qualifies me for nationals, so it was a good birthday present.

I don’t have any pictures (I was coaching/lifting, give me a break), nor do I have any video yet (although it will be here eventually). In the mean time, watch Alexander Kurlovitch and his efficient mechanics in this 250 kg clean and jerk. He catches the clean precisely in the the position that he will jerk from.